


Broken Wings

by Pearl_Unplanned



Series: Cap_Ironman Bingo 2015 [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Cap_Ironman Bingo, Community: cap_ironman, Implied abuse, M/M, Past Kidnapping, Stony Bingo, Winged!Tony, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4561290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearl_Unplanned/pseuds/Pearl_Unplanned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Now he could only dream of the days when he got to fly free in the sky, with only the wind beneath his wings telling him where to go.</i><br/>But then a strange man shows up that may just be his salvation. AU, wingfic. For Cap_IM Bingo</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Wings

**Author's Note:**

> For the Free Space. I don't know if we have to do a fic for the free space, but since we're allowed to interpret prompts how we want to, I used the prompt "Free". If it's supposed to be a 'pick a prompt' kind of thing, I guess I chose Wingfic.  
> For Captain America/Iron Man BINGO!

                It had been thirty-seven days now since he's seen sunlight. The artificial light was giving him severe headaches, and he honestly wasn't sure how much longer he'd be able to survive like this. Before, he never had to go long without sunlight. During the summer months, he spent most of his time in the sunlight, watching the clouds roll by in a gentle, smooth movement that he could watch all day long and never be bored of seeing.

                This cage was a lot smaller than his outside one. Even during the winter, he used to get a few hours outside before they locked him back up. The small cage they kept him in now made his wings hurt, since he couldn't stretch them out to their full span here. All he could do while trapped in this God-forsaken place was partly stretch one wing in front of him enough to preen his feathers and keep them looking as good as he could.

                It's not like he could do anything else here. The food they gave him wasn't good and it wasn't enough to keep his body at full strength, or to give his feathers that luscious, silky smooth shine that they used to have.

                He was young when they found him and locked him up. He fought them, sure, but he was too young and too weak to win.

                Now he could only dream of the days when he got to fly free in the sky, with only the wind beneath his wings telling him where to go.

                His wings curled tightly around himself, hiding him in a mass of feathers, when he heard someone open the door. More awful, artificial light shone down on him--he'd _just_ managed to get a rock to strike the light in the right way for it to break and destroy that harmful light. Maybe they were coming back to punish him for breaking their light. (He hated the darkness, but even the dark was better than the fake light that hurt his eyes.)

                "Hello?" It was a voice he didn't recognize, one that didn't belong to his captors.

                _Not again_ , he thought, shuddering and he tried to disappear once again. _I don't want to be taken away, not again!_

                This was the third 'home' he had after he was captured. This was, by far, the worst. They got worse every time he was moved, and if he was moved again, he couldn't imagine how much worse things could get. Maybe at the next place, they'd beat him more, they'd never let him see the sky again, they'd never talk to him with calm words the way that some people had, soothing him with their voice, making him feel like maybe today wasn't as bad as it could be. Maybe things could get better.

                "Is anyone down here?" A line of artificial light shone across the room. A single beam of light, fake, chasing away the darkness that had been shrouding him for the past two days. His captors hadn't shown up in three days now, so he'd been without food for a while. The water in his cage was running dangerously low.

                It was only a matter of time before the humans returned.

                The beam of light fell upon his wings. He could tell by the way that light filtered through his feathers, lighting up the darkness that he'd tried to hide himself in. This was bad, they found him. It wasn't surprising that they found him, but he'd tried not to move whatsoever so that he wouldn't make any noise.

                There was a small, muffled gasp before he could hear footsteps. Knowing that he'd been found, he scooted back as far as he could until he ran into the bars on the far side of the cage.

                "Please, don't be scared," the man, he could tell it was a man, said quietly. He sounded gentle, like the other people before who hadn't hurt him. But he was too scared to find out if this man was nice or not.

                "Leave me alone," he whispered, moving his wings slightly so that he'd be able to see the man with the fake light.

                The man was tall and muscular, like many of the people who'd hurt him before. Blond hair and eyes like the sky, with a look of surprise and awe on his face that he'd never seen before. Humans had always looked at him like he was an object, something to behold, something to make them rich. He wasn't a 'someone', he was a 'some _thing'_. He was never treated like a person, only like an animal, at best.

                The man was pressed against the bars, looking like he wanted to get closer but couldn't. "How do I get you out of here? Do you know if there's a key somewhere?"

                "Why would you want me out? You've got nothing to put me in," he said aloud, though he should've have done that. He didn't _want_ to be put into a containment cell, but it was just surprising that there wasn't one waiting for him.

                "Is that what you...? I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to get you out of this terrible place," the man said quietly. He looked around a little, shining his fake light around before he must've realized that there wasn't just a spare key lying around somewhere.

                "Then who are you?" He didn't understand why he felt so comfortable around this human.

                "I'm... I'm here to get you out of here."

                "I want a name." He'd gotten hurt for being so demanding, but he felt like this man wasn't going to hurt him.

                "Steve," the blond man said. "Steve Rogers. Uh... Captain America. I don't think you've heard of me, but... I'm here to rescue you."

                "How do I know that you're not going to hurt me?" He asked, rolling his shoulders so that he could move his wings back behind himself. He watched the man flinch upon seeing some of the scars that littered his body.

                "I know your father," Steve said quickly. That wasn't what he'd been expecting the man to say. His father? The last time he saw his father was... ten years ago. He was nine, and those first people had him... Honestly, _they_ were the worst. These newest people were only honestly the next worse after the people who'd taken him away from his father.

                All he could remember from his time before being captured was the feel of the wind on his wings, lifting his heart. He could feel the soft, dark feathers of his father's wings, and he could see the light, happy look on his father's face, with real sunlight reflecting in his dark eyes. It wasn't much, but it was what he held onto.

                "You..." He moved closer, cautiously, trying to figure out if this man was lying or not. "...know my father?"

                "I do," the man said, nodding. His eyes were still clear and blue as the sky. He wasn't lying. "I met him a few years back... three to be exact. He told me about what happened to you, and he got me to help try to find you. The company I work with is already trying to shut down these... these awful places."

                "My father's... looking for me?" He thought that his father just forgot about him.

                "He's never stopped," Steve whispered. Steve reached through the bars. He flinched when the man's hand landed on his shoulder. "He couldn't be here today because he was injured in the last... encounter, but he's waiting for you back at the base. He doesn't know that we found you yet--I _know_ that this has to be your father. What... uh, what do you remember?"

                "Not much," he admitted reluctantly. "It was a long time ago." He flapped his wings a little, using the momentum to rise to his feet. "They don't keep a key here."

                "Okay... I can still get you out of here," Steve said, fingers tracing the bars of the cage with such grace and softness that he didn't think Steve would be able to break through them, even _with_ the amount of muscles that he had. "Back up some, okay? I don't want to accidently hurt you."

                He nodded and backed off, wings wrapping protectively around his body. Steve carefully took ahold of the bars and gave them a fierce tug. When they didn't move, he was going to step forward again, but... but then Steve put both hands on either bar in front of him before they started _bending_ in his grasp. There was a look of supreme concentration on his face, wrinkles on his forehead and by his eyes, and his jaw was clenched. Suddenly, the bars snapped, and there was a large hole in the cage.

                Wide eyes stared at the hole in the cage, and his mouth was hanging open. All of his feathers felt rigid with shock at seeing Steve rip the cage open like that. That man had some brute force behind those gentle eyes and kind hands. Wow. He was quite impressed. Steve's wide grin greeted him with kindness and friendship.

                "So what are you gonna call me?" he asked. Each time he was taken somewhere new, they changed his name. His real name was somewhere lost in the back of his mind, but he could never come up with what it was.

                "They... change your name, each time you end up somewhere new?" Steve sounded shocked and a little horrified. It made him a little uncomfortable, the way Steve's eyes traced the scars on his body, probably imagining how each one ended up there. The blond man took a step forward.

                "Angel, creature, pest, bitch, winged rat, I've been called a lot of different things." He shrugged, feeling self-conscious. He couldn't even remember his own _name_.

                "Anthony," Steve whispered, and he shivered a little when Steve ran a hand over one of his speckled brown wings. "Howard told me that your name is Anthony."

                "Father used to call me Tony." Sudden realization dawned upon him when Steve said his name. He could remember his father, the way that father used to fly with him, back when his was little and his wings were tiny, when father would carry him around and show him the world. He remembered when his mother was killed and his father almost died trying to protect him. He knew that his father loved him, and he'd never just give up.

                "Well, Tony, will you let me bring you to him?" Steve asked hesitantly. There was a careful smile, a young man unsure of where they stood at the moment, if he'd said or done something wrong. Tony decided then that he really liked the way that Steve smiled at him.

                "Steve," he-- _Tony_ \--said for the first time. The name felt nice on his lips, it sounded like it fit, like he was meant to see it.

                "Yes?"

                "I trust you." It was the most difficult thing he'd ever had to say before in his life, but the words felt right when spoken to Steve.

                A look of hope crossed Steve's face, and he reached out a hand to Tony. Tony accepted the offered hand and let the blond lead him out of the cage. For the first time in weeks, Tony stretched his wings out as far as they would go, knocking over anything in their path as he flapped them a few times. The pain and stress seemed to melt away and when he remembered that Steve was there, he glanced over at his savior.

                The wonder on Steve's face was genuine, and for once Tony didn't feel like a rare animal that was so strange that it had to be caged and watched, inspected and dissected with the eyes. Wordlessly, he stretched his right wing over towards Steve and gave him a small, encouraging smile when Steve slowly, carefully, reached a hand over to his feathers. It felt nice to feel someone touch them without causing pain, without the fear that someone would try to rip a wing off or something.

                "You... are so unique," Steve whispered. "I'm glad that I finally found you. I've been trying to track you down since your father started trusting me enough to tell me about... well, _you_. I'm so glad to have met you, but the circumstances... aren't that good. And I'm sorry for that, but..."

                "I understand," Tony said. He was still a little cautious--he couldn't forget what he'd been through for the past several years--but things felt easier with Steve.

                "I don't understand why anyone would want to put you in a cage," Steve said, his hand gently caressing Tony's hand as he led the winged man up the stairs.

                Tony's legs shook as he crept up the stairs. In his mind, he couldn't yet believe that the evil place he'd been at for the past two years was the last evil place he'd ever go to. It was like there might be another cage outside, and once he got out, Steve would just put him into that cage. It was nice to have his name again, though, even if there was a chance he'd lose it again soon.

                His eyes closed tight when they got upstairs and the sunlight glared right into his face. It felt so warm, so _free_ , just to be able to see the harsh, beautiful light of day once more. He let go of Steve's hand, and Steve didn't try to stop him as he raced forward, out of the building, onto the cool, crisp grass outside. With both wings stretched out wide, Tony spun around with eyes wide open, trying to look at everything, to take it all in as if it was the last time he'd ever get to see the sky again.

                The grass was so soft underfoot after months of nothing but cement. He felt warm and wanted his skin to always be visible to the sun, because the sun seemed to sink into his skin and warm his heart, too. Before he even knew what he was doing, Tony was in the air, wind beneath his wings, looking down at the world just like he had when he was with his father.

                A cry of joy escaped his lips, and he was turning, turning, turning until he realized that he was flying at _Steve_. He crashed into the blond man, wrapping his arms around him before lifting him off the ground with a few flaps from his powerful wings. Steve looked shocked, and he wrapped his _very_ strong arms around Tony, making the winged man realize that it wasn't just the sunlight that was warming his heart.

                "Tony!" Steve gasped, though Tony could see the look of awe on his face. When Tony glided back over to the ground, he placed his human friend down before wrapping his wings around the man in a hug.

                "Thank you," Tony cried, and he couldn't stop the emotion. He wasn't in a cage, he wasn't being hurt, and he could see the _sky_ again. He could see the sky in Steve's eyes.

                "Let's get you home," he murmured, strong yet gentle arms still holding Tony, comforting him, reminding him that he wasn't alone.

                Lifting his head to the sky, Tony smiled at the warmth on his face. The wind ruffled his feathers. "Yeah... let's go home."


End file.
